History of Greece

by George Grote

Volume 4

Excerpt

The geography of the countries occupied in ancient times by the Illyrians, Macedonians, Peonians, Thracians, &c., and now possessed by a great diversity of races, among whom the Turks and Albanians retain the primitive barbarism without mitigation, is still very immr fectl y understood; though the researches of Colonel Leake, of Boué, of Grisebach, and others (especially the valuable travels of the latter), have of late thrown much light upon it. How much our knowledge is extended in this direction, may be seen by comparing the map pre fixed to Menuett's Geographie, or to O. Miiller's Dissertation on the Macedonians, with that in Boué's Travels; but the extreme deficiency of the maps, even as they now stand, is emphatically noticed by Boué himself (see his Critique des Cartes de la Turquie in the fourth volume of his Voyage) — by Paul Joseph Schafi'arik, the learned historian of the Sclavonic race, in the preface attached by him to Dr. Joseph Muller's Topographical Account of Albania — and by Grisebach, who in his sur veys taken from the summits of the movmtains Peristeri and Ljubatrin, found the map differing at every step from the bearings which pre sented themselves to his eye. It is only since Boué and Grisebacb that the idea has been completely dismissed, derived originally from Strabo, of a straight hue of mountains (maria ypappv), Strabo, lib. Vii. Tm. 3) running across from the Adriatic to the Euxine, and sending forth other lateral chains m a direction nearly southerly. The mountains of Turkey in Europe, when examined with the stock of geological science which M. Viquesnel (the companion of Boué) and Dr. Grise bach bring to the task, are found to belong to systems very difi'erent, and to present evidences of conditions of formation often quite inde pendent of each other.